


The Other Assistant

by we_could_be_heroes



Category: The Monstrumologist Series - Rick Yancey
Genre: Gen, Humor, Jealousy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-17 21:56:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2324543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/we_could_be_heroes/pseuds/we_could_be_heroes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will Henry doesn't want to be Dr. Warthrop's assistant anymore. But that doesn't mean he'll let anyone else have the position.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other Assistant

“Your disapproval notwithstanding, Mr. Winslowe will be arriving on Friday. Arrange your matters accordingly.”

I felt an irresistible urge to take the hard-boiled egg and crack it on his head.

“This better not turn into another Arsewipe disaster,” I mumbled to myself and dumped the cookie I was about to eat into the steaming hot tea. As I stood up to leave the table, I surreptitiously pushed the teacup toward Warthrop to make sure he noticed the cookie's slow and miserable dissolution, hoping he understood it for the metaphor of my loyalty that it represented.

As the day of Winslowe's arrival approached, I did my best to distill my disapproval into a series of minuscule, but ultimately dooming little sabotages. I went through the painstaking task of destroying Warthrop's catalog cards of monsters, making identical copies of a third of them, but with a single, critical mistake. I then misnumbered another third of the cards, which left only 33.3% of them correct, a devious percentage that was sure to arouse a certain amount of hope, only to shatter it again and again. That was not all: I also filled half of the sugar bowl with salt and topped it off with sugar, scheming that on one of these days, when they least expected it, someone's spoon would reach the salt layer, causing the victim to live from then on in constant uncertainty about the most everyday things. And lastly, when tasked with preparing Mr. Winslowe's room, I placed into the most unpredictable spots between the sheet and mattress five strategically waddled socks, creating an annoyingly random pattern of small bumps to make sure that not even in his sleep, the man would find peace.

And then it was Friday and someone knocked on our door.

“Dr. Warthrop doesn't live here,” I told to the creature I already detested the most above all the God's most detestable creatures on the planet, including the cockroach, the death worm and the blob fish.

The creature narrowed its revolting aquamarine eyes and uttered the following unholy grumble: “Really? I was given this exact address, I am sure of it.”

“The address is correct but the timing is wrong,” I shook my head woefully. “Dr. Warthrop is no longer with us.”

“No longer -?”

“Passed away,” I clarified. “Dead as a dodo.”

Winslowe started rummaging in his pockets and for an absurd moment, I thought he was going to give me a tip, but then he brought out a piece of paper. “But I received this cable from him only this morning!”

“It was very sudden. And very, very painful. Runs in the family. Well, if there's nothing else -”

“Will Henry, please.” Contrary to my expectations, Warthrop had emerged from his underground lair sooner than usual. He pushed me away from the door so forcefully I almost toppled over the coat stand. “You have to excuse Mr. Henry's humor – it can be a bit dark sometimes."

“Very dark,” I amended darkly from the shadows behind the door.

The following days were even worse than I had expected - which was saying something since all this happened at a period in my life when I expected extremely little in general. About three days into the ordeal of watching Warthrop and Winslowe get on like a house on fire, I had the epiphany that I had gone about it all wrong and that besides starting an actual fire, there was still a hidden option of making sure Winslowe cut and ran and never looked back. You see, Warthrop was still on his best behavior, keeping regular hours, saying please and thank you and even growing only mildly displeased upon the discovery of his ruined catalog system. Only I knew there was a hideous painting hidden in the attic of his soul, that of a moody, selfish and horrible man, and apparently, it was I who possessed the unique talent of inciting him to show his true self in all its insufferable glory.

Except that no matter how hard I pushed, he just wouldn't break. I “accidentally” cut right into a fanged siamang's full bowel, contaminating the whole laboratory with unbearable stench - “Better luck next time, Will Henry.” I pretended to have torn up a letter from Lewis E. Waterman, the inventor of the fountain pen - “That could happen to anyone.” I claimed to have transferred a payment of 5000 dollars instead of 50 to the account of the building company which renovated our desolate stable - “To err is human.”

It may have been the recent acquisition of the Necrophorus Limosus that kept Warthrop's spirits up. If I even remotely cared about the creature, I would have remembered more about it and could perhaps tell you it was a huge and absolutely disgusting beetle which, over the course of millennia of God's fumblings, had developed a most peculiar kind of defense mechanism: when threatened, it oozed repulsive slime toxic to all mammals with the exception of the common squirrel. But sadly, I no longer recall anything about the slime beetle, not even the fact that on its subject, Warthrop declared: "This may not be the Holy Grail of monstrumology, my dear Mr. Winslowe, but it may very well be the Excalibur." All that my efforts to provoke Warthrop while he was enamored with his new discovery amounted to was a conversation I overheard when randomly finding myself with my ear pressed to the door of the laboratory:

“Your assistant really is astonishingly incompetent. Why do you keep him here?”

Because he's indispensable to me. Because he saved my life. Because I saved _his_ life. That's what Warthrop should have said – instead, all he said was: “Well, he's ...yes.”

Desperate people do desperate things and so on the seventh night of Winslowe's intrusion into our home, I made the last attempt to reverse the course of history at my own personal Waterloo.

I waited until midnight and then sneaked into Warthrop's bedroom.

“Wake up!” I shook him. “Wake up!”

“What – what do you want now?”

“What do _I_ want? You were the one to call me.”

“I did?” He sounded hesitant enough for me to inwardly waltz the waltz of victory.“... No.”

“Oh, yes you did, YOU WAKE ME UP EVERY OTHER NIGHT,” I shouted at him, hoping Winslowe was a light sleeper. “WILL HENREEE, WILL HENREEE --- JUST LIKE TONIGHT.”

"For God's sake, _shut up!"_ Warthrop hissed at me. "What has gotten into you?"

I did not deign to answer. Instead, I turned my back on him and crossed my arms like an adult. But as the seconds passed and I still stood there, the stupidity of my plan slowly dawned on me. What was I trying to achieve?

Then Warthrop finally said: "You couldn't possibly by jealous of Winslowe, could you?" There was no answer I could give that would make me come out of the situation victorious, so I remained silent. Meanwhile, Warthrop continued: "You yourself said you loathe everything about monstrumology and detest every fiber of my being - well, forgive me for taking it to mean you were resigning on the assistant position."

"That's not - I didn't -" my brain overheated from trying to come up with an explanation that would somehow salvage my dignity. But a lucky coincidence provided one for me - because just then, we heard the clatter of horse shoes outside. It was Winslowe, absconding, as we later found out, with Warthrop's prized slime beetle.

"Oh no, not again," Warthrop despaired and I almost felt sorry for him. Naturally, I told him that it was Winslowe's betrayal - which I had uncovered all on my own - that brought me to his room that night, not a last desperate attempt at reclaiming my lost position. Whether he believed me I never found out, though sometimes I suspect the loss of the Necrophorus Limosus may have quite overshadowed any other worry weighing on his mind at that time.

 


End file.
